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Overwatch launched and immediately became super popular, but I wasn’t sure I would like it. I’d never gotten into Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike: Global Offensive frustrated me, and my time playing DotA 2 and League of Legends was short-lived. Somehow, despite Overwatch being likened to all of these games, I love Overwatch alone.

I kept hearing about Stardew Valley
on Reddit as well as seeing friends on Steam playing it. It was priced at $15 with an extra $5 to get the soundtrack. I very rarely dislike video game
soundtracks so of course I had to get the soundtrack, too. I wasn’t sure how well I’d like the actual game, but /r/girlgamers was
talking about it and it sounded cute, with $15 being cheap enough that I was
willing to give it a shot, especially to support an indie game. The few
screenshots I’d seen put Minecraft in mind because of the item bar across the
bottom of the screen, and there was a pickaxe. So whatever, I figured I’d try
it.

I’m pretty fickle when it comes to music subscription services; I like to try them all. I’ve used Pandora, Rdio, Google Music, and Spotify. I had no particular reason to switch to Apple Music when it came out because Spotify works so perfectly. Then camethe reportsabout Spotify’srecent privacypolicy changes; I decided to try Apple Music after all.

Last week, T-Mobile announced they’d pay your Early Termination Fee to switch from another carrier to T-Mobile. I had been thinking about trying out an Android phone for a while, and the Nexus was my top pick. I couldn’t have a Nexus on Verizon because of GSM/CDMA crap, and I wasn’t about to go back to AT&T since I left them in disgust for Verizon a year back. The T-Mobile deal was my ticket off of Verizon, which was a decent carrier if expensive, and into the Android world. The next day, I went out and swapped my iPhone 4S for a Nexus 5. I’ve been keeping notes in Evernote on my new phone about how the experiences differ.

So I’ve had my iPad 2 for a month now and I thought I’d write about how it’s worked for me. I hope you guys aren’t sick of iPad posts, because I’m all excited about my new baby and want to write about it. :P First the good things.

UK just lost to Connecticut in the Final Four so I’m cranky anyway, but one thing I’m really starting to find annoying is media limitations on my iPad. Grooveshark has a snazzy new HTML 5 interface, but they still require Flash for the music player. No Grooveshark app exists for either the iPhone or iPad in the App Store, so no Grooveshark for me on my iPad.

I got my iPad 2 in! I’m using it now, to type this entry, and it’s going pretty well. I took notes in compilers this morning using Upad, which allows me to type as well as draw in the same document. It went pretty well, though I found a few annoyances that I’ll have to note in a review. We’ll see how it goes in models of computation, where I use a lot of mathematical symbols and figures; I bet the drawing capabilities will be very useful there. In compilers, I mostly found myself writing text.

After having used my CR-48 Chrome OS netbook for a little under a month, I have to say it has been an exercise in frustration. I don’t know how much of that is the fault of the operating system, because my two main issues deal with the trackpad and the wireless connectivity.

Holy crap, I got a Chrome OS netbook! I didn’t think I’d actually get one after I signed up for their beta program a few days ago. I didn’t submit a video explaining why I’d be an excellent choice, and my answers were short. I just explained that, as a student, I’d test Chrome OS by taking notes in class, doing my homework, and doing some programming; I also said I’d be able to test how an Internet-based laptop performs when out in the boonies at my parents’ house, where their wifi isn’t the greatest and their Internet connection is even worse. :P Somehow, though, I managed to score a position in the beta program—woot!

It was the case, back in the day, that Linux was for the hacker elite, but those days are long gone. Now, you can pop in a live CD and you’re off. Most live CD’s offer an install option, so if you like browsing around the OS, double-click an icon on the desktop and it’ll install to your hard drive. When I got my new computer, to install Ubuntu, I just popped in the CD, let it boot, and chose the install option. I then sat back as it did everything for me. Oh, it asked me a few questions, such as my name, where I was located, etc., but those aren’t exactly questions that computer newbies would have trouble with. The whole thing was easy; I watched TV while I was doing it and just glanced over every now and then to see its progress. It rebooted when it finished and I was presented with a login screen. I typed the user name and password I’d chosen, and boom! I had a pretty desktop with very normal looking menus. If someone is used to Windows, they’re going to feel pretty comfortable with a distribution such as Ubuntu because the layout is easy to work with.